Sanchai tipped for AIS wireless job
Advanced Info Service Plc (AIS) is expected to offer its former marketing whiz Sanchai Thiewprasertkul the newly created role of chief marketing officer for wireless groups as part of the company's plan to improve business synergy.
While he declined to name who would be given the job, AIS president Wichian Mektrakarn said yesterday the company would create a new position of chief marketing officer overseeing the marketing direction of AIS' wireless businesses. Wichian said the new role is intended to pursue synergy in the company's wireless businesses. AIS' wireless businesses include the company itself, international Internet gateway operator Advanced International Network, data communications provider Advanced Datanetwork Communication, and the wireless payment service provider Advanced Payment. A source reported that AIS would give Sanchai the new post. Asked if that was true, Wichian said, "It's possible." Sanchai is currently president of major handset distributor Samart i-Mobile Plc (SIM). He was a marketing executive for AIS before leaving to become managing director of iTV Plc. He later left iTV to assume the MD post of personal loan provider at Capital OK. Capital OK, iTV and AIS are subsidiaries of Shin Corp Plc. Wichian said AIS would announce the appointment of the chief marketing officer soon. "Currently, each AIS wireless business is moving in a different marketing direction ... it's time they went in the same direction in order to create synergy," Wichian said. In a separate matter, AIS submitted a letter to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) yesterday asking for fair treatment in the commission's ongoing investigation into whether AIS' service price was tantamount to dumping, as alleged by True Corp Plc. The AIS letter requested the NTC investigate True Move, the cellular operator subsidiary of True Corp, and Total Access Communication, claiming they had undertaken similar practices. True's allegation came after AIS' recent launch of a prepaid call package offering rates of Bt1 per call during off-peak hours and Bt1 per minute during peak hours. AIS argued in its letter that both True Move and DTAC, which possess a combined market share of 50 per cent, offer similar packages, so the NTC should also investigate them.
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